Lunar Truss Design and Construction

Building on the Phase 1 results, the Phase II proposed work will produce an automated assembly technique that can build a 50m tower on the lunar surface.nbsp; This will be demonstrated at a TRL level 5 or above.nbsp; Additionally, advancements to RFSSW machine design for survivability in the lunar environment will be shown, and design improvements will be made that benefit both extraterrestrial and earth-based products. nbsp; The relevance and significance of the proposed Phase 2 innovation to the original topic are directly aligned to the overall objective of contributing to the development of lunar infrastructure manufacturing processes. These efforts also apply to Mars habitat construction methods for infrastructure. RFSSW joining technology is inherently energy efficient, but an additional benefit is the possibility to manufacture truss elements using solid state processing such as friction extrusion (FE).nbsp; Should friction extrusion be implemented, the geometry of the truss elements is well suited to the length and cross-sectional capabilities of a moon-based FE system.